


Junk

by Cottia



Series: My Early DW Stuff [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dialogue-Only, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 09:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cottia/pseuds/Cottia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Backstory for why exactly the Doctor had an Extremely Convenient clockwork mouse in his pocket during 'The Doctor's Daughter.'  Written for a dare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Junk

JUNK

 

"The milk's run out."

He wriggled out from under the console and blinked at Rose. "What?"

"There's no milk. I would've mentioned when the biscuits ran out, but you promised to take me to see Justin Timberlake's first gig ever and I forgot. But now the milk's gone too."

The Doctor sighed. "Unless I fix the shunt refractor, the TARDIS can't take us anywhere further than 100 years away onworld-"

"That's good then, they'll have milk - ”

“ - Don't you want to see Sassafras 6? They've got this brilliant tree, the fruits taste a bit like raspberries and pear drops, only they grow in paper wrappers, and they're stripy - ”

"Can't have tea without milk."

"I took you shopping on Lesser Metalaxis..."

"...and the milk there was blue. Take us to Tescos. Now."

"Promise me no clothes shopping. You never wear any of the things in the wardrobe and we go to all kinds of markets, but whenever there's a New Look you run in like there's a Hoix after you."

"What's a Hoix?"

"Wrinkly, head crest, big eyes. Something very very hungry. All the time."

"We'll be very very hungry if we don't go to the shops!"

"Oh, all right. But no clothes. And we need to go to Oxfam."

"Why Oxfam?"

"Why not? Worthy cause. Lots of books. I love books!"

"You have every book ever published right here in the TARDIS - even Sweet Valley High! I looked!"

"Well, I like finding old books! I wanted to chuck some stuff out, anyway."

Rose's eyebrows shot up. "Really? You never chuck anything, even that used hankie of Euler's. What've you possibly got that's so bad you won't keep it anymore?"

The Doctor leapt up, leant against the console and grinned impishly at her. "Guess."

Rose tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, smirking. "Flares, Barry Manilow album, video of Space Jam..."

The Doctor stopped grinning.

 

\---------------------------------------------

 

"Ro-ose, I'm bo-ored! Can't we just get the milk and go? You know the clothes section in Tescos does count as clothes shopping - ”

“ - does not - ”

“ - does so. And that girl with the SFX magazine is giving us a funny look - ”

“ - giving YOU a funny look, because you would wear that red coat with the floppy sleeves - ”

“ - what's wrong with this coat? I actually got into a terrible mix-up with this thing in Venice once, best night ever, it was brilliant - ”

"You look like you're in a pantomime, that's what's wrong with it! Just - be good, and I'll buy you an ice-cream."

"With whose money?"

"With...fine, with yours. Not that it is yours, you just sonic it out of cash machines."

The Doctor looked as injured as it is possible to look whilst clutching a box of Mingles and a Spice Girls Greatest Hits CD. "I will have you know", he began, while trying to sneak the Turkish delight back out of the trolley, "that I have a few well-researched investments in offworld accounts, and I always put the money back into the Earth bank when I get back to the TARDIS. I mean I tried, I did, but you would not believe the hassle you get when you wave a credit card about in a Splanchnopleuric bar. I mean, they say you'll get a "That'll do nicely, sir" but no, first there's the questions about what bank it is, and no-one's ever heard of it, and then they want to know whose signature it is..."

 

\---------------------------------------------

 

After returning to the TARDIS to put away the milk and biscuits (and bread, and sushi, and baby carrots, and Mingles, and bananas, and toffee, and cheese straws, and Turkish delight (Rose caught him)), and owing to some of what the Doctor called "unavoidable adverse turbulence in the Rift-Space continuum" and what Rose called "dodgy driving", two hours later relative time found them staggering into an Age Concern with two large boxes.

There was no-one behind the counter. In fact, there was no-one in the shop at all, so they dropped the boxes in front of the counter. Had the Doctor not been distracted by a first edition of Pygmalion just as he was bounding out the door, they would have been out of the shop by the time the cashier arrived.

"Can I help you?" He was an old, bulldoggish sort of man, with spectacles on a thin gold chain and a paisley waistcoat in a shade of pink Rose hadn't seen anyone wearing since she grew out of her Barbies.

"Ooh, yes, please. Well. These boxes. You take anything, right? Only some of it is a bit...battered. All still in perfect working order, though."

The man grunted and started picking through the boxes. Rose was amused to see a tape of Space Jam along with a tartan cape, a (solved) Rubik's cube, Little Shop of Horrors, a copy of Titus Groan and a recorder get scattered across the desk as the Doctor's oddments were disinterestedly examined.

Having carried one of the boxes, Rose had the sneaking suspicion that they were more than a little bigger on the inside. She started wandering around the shop, picking up tapes of old cartoons and counting copies of The Da Vinci Code.

There were 15.

She arrived back at the counter as the man was pulling out the final books (Peter Pan, and The Borribles). The Doctor was shifting from one foot to the other, looking wistfully at a two-disc set of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Tertiary Phase.

"These are all fine, I'll take them. Will that be all?"

The Doctor thrust a fifty pence piece and a revolting-looking wind-up mouse onto the counter. Rose groaned. "That looks revolting. I bet a cat's been sick on it. What d'you want it for, anyway?"

"It might come in handy sometime, alright? You never know."

"Go on then, think of any situation we could ever be in - in the whole of space and time - where a clockwork mouse could be useful."

He looked up, then side to side, then grinned. "Alright then, we could be in a room full of lasers, and we might have to push a button on the other side of the room to turn them off, and the only way we could do that is to wind the mouse up and send it scurrying across the floor, and then it could push the button on the far wall, and we could escape! Ha!"

Rose rolled her eyes. "The mouse is an inch high! What planet are we going to go to where the laser-button is an inch off the floor? Planet of the extremely-short-laser-obsessed-people?"

"After all the places I've taken you, Rose Tyler, are you telling me you don't believe in a planet of extremely-short-laser-obsessed-people?"

She snorted. "Whatever. It's your money. Just - wash it, alright?"

The Doctor grinned, pocketed the mouse, and dragged Rose out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaand this was the third. I was nineteen.
> 
> Don't do what I did, kids, don't decide not to write because then it will be Terrible Mockable Teenage Crud, make as much bad art as you can so you can get to the good stuff earlier...


End file.
